Chaos Theory
by gotanygrapes
Summary: "It has been said something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world." Once Brittany realizes what she gave up in Santana, she desperately goes back to change their fate. Brittana.


Summary: When Quinn breaks the news that Santana passed away, Brittany goes to the funeral only to be gifted with a pile of Santana's diaries. As she reads through them, she finds herself actually reliving the events of the entries. Once she realizes what she gave up in Santana, she desperately goes back through the journals in order to change their fate.

YES, this may look familiar to you. The concept isn't mine, and neither are the characters :P But, I had the urge to write this in a Brittana setting, so I hope you enjoy! It doesn't have anything to do with the movie, The Butterfly Effect, so it'll (hopefully) make sense without knowing anything about it.

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"Hello?"

A masculine throat cleared and began softly. "Quinn Fabray?"

"Yes?"

"Good morning, Quinn. It's Humberto Lopez, Santana's father," the man continued, the quietness and hesitation in his speech making his voice rough and gravely.

"Oh, hi, Dr. Lopez! How are you?"

"Heh," he scoffed gently. "Not so good, actually. I hope you don't mind that I got your number from your mother, but my family and I have a huge favor to ask of you."

"Okay, sure, Dr. Lopez…"

"Last Friday night..." Dr. Lopez trailed off. Another sigh and breathy pause. "Santana was in a car accident. She passed away."

The blond's jaw dropped, and she felt her body give way, too. Her knees and spine seemed to crumble under the weight of her own body, and she slumped to her knees on the spot, in the middle of her bedroom floor. Her lips moved wordlessly, unable to produce actual, thoughtful words. She knew Dr. Lopez couldn't see her, but she was trying.

Tears unwittingly began to flood down her cheeks, and after several minutes of silent sobbing and quiet gasping for air, she finally managed to mumble, "Wh-what? Why? What—what happened?"

Hearing the distress in Quinn's voice, Dr. Lopez did his best not to break down with her. It would only make the news worse for the girl; he needed to be strong just for a while to talk to her. "You know how she's been lately… She was out partying and drinking hard, and—and I guess she took off driving alone without whoever was with her."

Quinn let out another pathetic whimper. She knew. It made sense. She'd been begging Santana to cut that shit out on the rare occasions that she'd seen her lately. Her drinking, everything about her was out of control to the point of frustration. Now those fears proved well founded.

"You were always so good to my daughter, and I'm so sorry to have to ask this of you. …But, it would mean so much to our family." Silence, deep breaths. "We're having a memorial for Santana later this week here in Lima. We would really love for all of her close friends to come, but after high school, we're not sure exactly who all those people are. She kept in touch, but…not really with those details, since we mostly only heard about you and—well..."

Dr. Lopez couldn't see her, but Quinn nodded in understanding through her tears.

"We were hoping…I mean, we would really appreciate it if you could let her friends know about the service, so they could come if they wanted to."

Quinn nodded again and, after a few long deep breaths, she whispered a soft, "Of course."

"Thank you so much, Quinn," Santana's father hummed with a hint of a resigned smile in his tone. "We're so glad Santana had you after…" He sighed heavily. "Anyways…"

"Should I tell her?" Quinn blurted out abruptly, quickly wincing at her own clumsiness after the words left her lips.

Another sigh, this one more sharp and defined. "My wife…is quite upset, and I'm not sure seeing Brittany will do anything for her grief. But, a part of me thinks she has the right to come, and Santana might even have wanted her there." He paused thoughtfully, partly out of fear he'll reopen his wife's gaping wounds and partly out of uncertainty that Brittany should be allowed at all. "If you'd like to contact her, you have my blessing."

"Okay," the blond intoned softly.

"Thank you again, Quinn. You have no idea how much this means to us—to Santana, too. You're truly a godsend. I'll send you the information as soon as we've settled the plans."

For the third time, Quinn nodded in futile invisibility to Dr. Lopez, but couldn't offer a verbal response. Santana's father understood though and hung up without another word. They both tossed their phones onto the nearest surface and, after forcing themselves to fake the strongest front they could just to get through the conversation, they both collapsed in tears.

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Quinn stared at the piercing red digits of her alarm clock. 3:19 on Tuesday morning. Even though she'd bawled the entire day away, she still couldn't manage to exhaust herself to sleep. 3:19 on Tuesday. What did that mean? Almost four and a half days since her best friend died. Somewhere between ninety and a hundred hours since Santana finally paid the price for her incessant and uncontrolled drinking and wrapped her car around concrete.

It would have been so much easier if she could be mad at Santana, if Santana were just being an irresponsible, reckless drunk who thought she was too invincible and young to die. She could've just gotten angry at her then, since her selfish and immature actions were responsible for the mourning and misery of so many loved ones.

Instead, Quinn couldn't help but feel pity and dread. Despite the heartfelt thanks she got from Dr. Lopez for being such a great friend, she hadn't seen much of Santana the past year. But the times Santana had come out, especially the most recent ones, Quinn only noticed her hollowing out more and more. She was increasingly apathetic, withdrawn, emotionless each time. And, it seemed like gradually, the less she expressed and spoke, the more she drank. She'd always been a partier in college, but the new Santana was putting sorority Santana to shame in how many bottles and handles she went through a week. She hardly had any garbage that was—well—actual food. Quinn couldn't help but think that, maybe, this wasn't an accident or even if it was, Santana wouldn't have minded anyways.

Quinn wished she could've stopped it, and despite the incredible guilt she was fending off, she knew she tried her damndest. Santana rarely responded to her many attempts to contact her after the breakup. She had some lame excuse about not wanting to take Brittany's friends or not wanting Brittany to be alone, since they weren't together anymore. It was some shit that only made sense in some Santana way, some senselessly protective and self-sacrificing logic that she thought was in Brittany's best interests. In Santana's black-and-white, queen bitch mind, after a breakup, you were either friends with one person or the other—never both—so she wanted Brittany to have the one prized friend over the split.

In truth, Quinn admit that she probably would have chosen a side and only been a friend to the other on superficial or emergency levels. But, she would've chosen Santana had she had the choice. Maybe Santana knew that, and that's why she made the choice for her: so she'd _have_ to support Brittany and not her. What actually happened is that Santana pushed herself away from Quinn, and Quinn let her relationship with Brittany slowly fizzle away.

It was all _her_ fucking fault, anyways. All of it, the drinking, the introversion, the depression, started after Brittany cheated and told Santana she didn't want a future with her anymore. The change in the feisty, witty Latina could be traced plainly to nearly that exact fucking date. It was gradual, but still obvious. And yet, she was sure Brittany was somewhere in her yuppy Chicago condo, sleeping soundly and wrapped up in her boyfriend's arms, utterly untouched by anything that'd happened the past year.

It wasn't fair, and Quinn wouldn't have it. She thrashed out of her covers and walked over to her desk to add a name to the bottom of her list, the list of friends who she had to tell about her best friend's death. She gripped her pen in a fist, like a four-year-old would and scrawled through her furious tears the name that should have been the one doing _all of this_, crying all these tears and wasting all these moments trying to burn the memories of Santana into her mind before they disappeared forever.

_Brittany S. Pierce_

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Brittany gasped for air and quickly cried out her boyfriend's name, as a surge of physical ecstasy washed over her body. She felt him tense, heard him grunt and moan in pleasure as they reached their climaxes together and soon felt his body collapse on top of her. They laid there, panting, wordless, and punchdrunk from the physical exertion for a few minutes before he rolled off her to flop onto his back beside her.

The blond sighed, more out of exhaustion than satisfaction. This was becoming numbingly routine for them. The sex was great. She always came, and every moment of the act itself was passionate and fully satisfying. It was the time afterwards that was the burden. There was nothing wrong with these post-coital moments, but there was nothing right with them, either. After the orgasm, her body was no longer stimulated, and she just stopped feeling—completely. She didn't want to cuddle. She didn't want to pillow talk. She didn't want him to roll over for more. She just laid there waiting for sleep to take over, or she popped right out of bed to start on whatever she had planned next for her day.

No hard feelings towards her boyfriend. No feelings, at all actually. It wasn't personal. He did everything a boyfriend should and always made sure to please her whenever he needed to. But, she couldn't help but suspect that after fucking, he didn't exactly want to hear her bare her soul or cradle her to sleep either.

Today was Saturday, so she expected a lazy afternoon of napping after this and then waking up to have delivery dinner and watch the Buckeyes crush other teams' BCS dreams yet again. She was almost there—half in, half out of consciousness—when she heard a forceful knock on their front door.

"Ughh," she whined dramatically. She cracked her eyes open towards her boyfriend, who was showing no signs of being awake. She hissed out a quiet growl. He'd always been one to pass out shortly after the deed, but whenever there was something that needed to be done immediately afterwards, she couldn't help but think he was faking it just to pass along the responsibility.

Maybe it'd go away if she pulled the same stunt. She closed her eyes again and tangled her naked body into the sheets. This unwelcome guest deserved the cold shoulder if they wanted to come over unannounced.

Two, maybe three minutes passed with a persistent, increasingly frantic rattling on the front door coming every twenty seconds. Whoever this was was the most desperate and obnoxious salesperson she'd ever meet.

Brittany tossed open the covers impatiently, threw on the t-shirt and sweats on the top of her sort-of-clean laundry pile, and trudged grumpily towards the door. She may not have been cuddling, but she was at least expecting to be able to sleep off the numbness.

She swung the door open violently without bothering to look out the peephole first. "What?" she barked out in exasperation. Her incensed blue eyes instantly met swollen hazel ones, as Quinn stood at her doorway, sobbing quietly and nearly shivering. "Oh, my god. Q, what happened? What's wrong?"

Quinn stood shaking in place, sniffing and gasping. "B-Br-Brittany, I-I—" she stuttered in her trembling voice. She couldn't bring herself to say the words. She'd said them several dozen times over the past two days, and it was no easier the last time than it was the first.

"Jesus, come inside! Come here." Brittany wrapped her arms around her pitiful friend and all but carried her into the apartment, kicking the door closed behind them. She set the shorter blond down on the sofa and held her, rubbing her hand slowly up and down her friend's back. "Shhh, it's okay. What's wrong, Q?"

Quinn took a few moments to cry. She knew this would be hard, but this was…overwhelming. Maybe if she stopped battling and just bawled for a few minutes, she'd wear her emotions thin and finally be able to speak. Once she could breathe without violently yelping for air, she tried to start again. "I-I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was coming…or that we haven't seen each other in a few weeks, but I—"

The words were coming up, and the closer she came to breaking the news, the harder it was to hold back her tears. Even though Brittany and Santana hadn't spoken in over a year, having to bear the bad news to Brittany still twisted Quinn's heart in ways none of the other messages had. Brittany had moved on and hadn't looked back. After graduation, she and Ryan moved in together and started to build their adult lives—jobs, cars, dog, and all. Maybe, guiltily, she thought the news should crush Brittany, but knew it wouldn't. But, they used to be her best friends, both of them, and she'd hurt for Santana even if Brittany didn't.

"Shh, calm down. It's okay. Just let it out," the taller blond cooed softly, still hugging and comforting the girl beside her.

_It should be the other way around. She should be the one in tears. Who does she think she is to soothe and placate me when she should be a disaster? _With a small spurt of indignation and anger, Quinn finally spit out the clumsy words, "She's gone, B."

"Who? Who's gone, sweetheart?" Brittany intoned with a calm level-headedness that only agitated Quinn further. She didn't deserve to sit there, unphased and in control, as if she weren't a part of this.

"Santana!" Quinn hissed with defeated frustration, as tears began to flood down her cheeks again.

"Where did Santana go?"

The shorter blond couldn't help but growl at the dense and apathetically reflexive question from Brittany. She was being so condescending in her caring, like a mother holding a child and saying, "There, there. Now, where did you last see Mr. Fuzzles? We'll find him."

She grit her teeth, feeling her tightened facial muscles squeeze even more tears from her puffy eyes. She sucked her lungs full of air and held it there before exhaling loudly. "She's dead, Brittany."

Quinn felt the confident hand that had been rubbing her back freeze, and a palpable tension filled the air. She let the silence fester. She was still—perhaps irrationally—angry at Brittany, and even if she weren't, she was too upset right then to be doing any comforting of her own.

"Wh-what?" the dancer whispered shakily.

Quinn closed her eyes and sighed, a hint of pity edging away her bitterness. "There was an accident. She was driving home drunk, and…" She didn't finish. She didn't want to, and she didn't need to. She felt that soothing arm around her fall limp. She looked over at Brittany and saw the brutal shock across her face. It almost comforted Quinn (maybe Brittany really did care), but it wasn't enough. She should've been in pieces.

"Wha-? How—how do you know? Are you sure?" Brittany asked frantically. Still no tears. Quinn felt her outrage starting to reignite.

"Yeah, Brittany. I—"

"I don't believe you! Where did you hear this?" Brittany shrugged her shoulders in a violent jerk, pulling her body away suddenly from Quinn's. Her voice was shouting, but she wasn't angry, just increasingly hysterical. She sprung to her feet and crossed her arms, gripping onto herself so tightly that her knuckles were blanching. "You ignore my texts for weeks, and then you come here and spring this on me? Is this some really sick revenge plot that Santana put you up to to guilt me?"

Quinn's eyes flared at the accusation. First, Brittany had the nerve not to be heartbroken that her best friend and lover for twenty-one years was dead. Now, she was trying to toss blame elsewhere? She was about to get up and slap her friend across the face when she heard a guttural throat clear.

"Everything alright here, babe?" Ryan emerged from the bedroom in his undershirt and gym shorts, his hair still a mess from…Quinn didn't even want to think about it. She was already about to knock some sense into Brittany.

She closed her eyes again, forcing herself back into those deep breaths. She came here to break the news, and doing it in person was the only proper and respectful way to do it. She wasn't there to start a war—as much as her impulses wanted to right then. "Yeah, Ryan. I was just on my way out," she sighed. She headed straight for the door and gripped the metal knob desperately, as if all her hurt and anger and frustration would manifest itself physically and she could crush the steel beneath her will.

"Look, if you want to believe me and feel like coming, I'll text you the details of the memorial service. It's back in Lima."

Now wrapped in the familiar embrace of her boyfriend's arms, Brittany watched her leave without another word.

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It had been five days since Quinn visited her apartment. Five days and 382 Google searches later, Brittany found herself back in Lima, Ohio. Her gut reaction when she heard the news was not to believe. So, she tore through every shitty online periodical, every local newspaper she could get her hands from Chicago. There had to have been a mistake. The girl who wrecked her car driving into the concrete highway suspension beams couldn't have been Santana. Or if it was, she was just in the ICU somewhere.

Brittany searched and searched, and all she could find was the same short, sickeningly impersonal obituary for Santana Lopez. Born January 12, 1994. Graduate of Ohio State University, Class of 2016. Survived by her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Humberto Lopez.

In reality, she didn't believe it up until the very moment she stepped foot into the church where the service was to be held. A part of her expected it to be a cruel, elaborate hoax on Santana and Quinn's part. Once she entered the sanctuary and saw almost a hundred miserable, familiar faces, her sneaking suspicion died quickly.

The room was small, but full. She recognized most of the mourners from McKinley, OSU, or all the Lopez family gatherings she'd been to over the years, so she sat in the very back pew and kept her head bowed throughout the service. She couldn't bear to face any of them.

Reality was settling in deep. It'd become obvious, but she allowed herself the façade of hope through some maniacal ruse up until then. Now, all other possibilities were stripped away. Santana was gone, and she was still stuck in shock while these other hundred people were already able to grieve and remember her. She knew she should be falling apart, but it was all coming too fast—all the songs, all the scriptures, all the nostalgic eulogies bombarding her from the altar, obstructing and confusing her own processing of the loss.

Her mind was a mess. Every time she thought she might have a grapple on what _she_ was feeling or thinking, she was interrupted by the word "slushie" and the bittersweet chuckling of the crowd or the soulful belting of what was sure to be Mercedes if she looked up.

By the time the chaos began to give way to some mental clarity, everyone else was already crowding the aisles to leave the sanctuary. She honestly couldn't remember a single coherent sentence of the ceremony. She wasn't even sure how long she'd been there.

She stayed seated, head bowed until every last person had left the room, even the ones who had lingered to solemnly chat or reconnect with old faces in the pews of the cathedral. She could still hear a few muffled voices coming from the lobby, but easily ignored them. It finally felt like she had a moment of privacy to hear her own thoughts.

Finally, for the first time in what must have been hours, she straightened her neck and looked around the room. It was completely empty, save for several floral arrangements and that box where supposedly Santana lay dead. A part of her, the helpless, pathetic child in her that never grew up, still wanted to believe that if she were to walk over and look in, it would be another girl laying there—or even better, completely empty. She was too much of a coward to go look and prove that child right.

Brittany wondered how she went so unnoticed as friends and family of the Lopez family mingled, consoled each other, and tried their damndest to make each other smile after the service. Everyone who knew Santana knew her, at least up until a year ago. No one had stopped to say hi or ask her how she was doing. Did sitting in the back and not looking up really make her so anonymous?

She was starting to feel disgustingly self-conscious and judged when a quiet, hollowed-out voice interrupted her distress.

"You're still here." It was more of a disappointed statement than a question.

The blond turned to see Santana's mother slowly stalking towards her. She wasn't sure what to do: panic, cry and show remorse, smile and try to offer comfort from another loved one? "Mrs. Lopez," she called back weakly, her deer-in-headlights expression still plastered on her face. It was all she could offer right then.

"I was hoping you'd stay, so I could talk to you." Mrs. Lopez's voice was firm, but still oozing with grief. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

"Of course I'd—" Brittany tried to pipe up in her own defense, but was silenced by a dismissive wave of Mrs. Lopez's hand.

"I've been thinking all week about what I'd do if you came, what I'd say to you. My little girl's gone, Brittany, and you—" She shut her eyes, sighed, and forced back her tears and spiteful words. She'd rehearsed this moment so many times in her head; she wouldn't give into her blame and anger. Instead, she pulled the canvas tote bag off her shoulder and pushed it towards the blond.

"When we were packing up her apartment, I found these," she said with a sedated fondness, as she reached into the bag and pulled out a leather journal. "When Santana was first learning how to read and write, I had her write down everything she did that day in a diary to practice her handwriting and spelling. I had no idea she kept one up all this time…" the mother trailed off, her shaky voice lilted with a hint of an endearing smile.

"I read them, even though my husband told me I shouldn't. I just had to really _know_ my baby, know and remember everything about her, because I'd never get to see or learn anything new about her ever again. For two days straight, I did nothing but read every last word of these." She gestured down at the dozen or so journals stacked in the tote. A rogue tear crept out of her control and trickled down her cheek. She winced, both at the surge of emotion she battled to keep at bay and at what she was about to say. "After I read them, even though we've known you all your life, Brittany, I hated you so much."

Mrs. Lopez didn't mean her words to be an attack, just a statement. Brittany could tell. So, instead of getting angry and defensive, she instinctively began to cry. She had no idea why this, being told she was hated, made her cry when Santana dying hadn't yet, but the inexplicable tears came anyways.

"It was no surprise that almost every entry was about you. And if it wasn't, you were still with her in whatever was happening. All I saw was how happy Santana was for so long, until you walked away from her. So, I blamed this," she gestured towards the casket at the foot of the altar. "I blamed you for taking my baby away from me."

Mrs. Lopez choked down another sob, swallowed and breathed deeply before she lost control. "I thought about giving these to you out of anger…so you could see what you've done. I wanted you to read every page about how much she loved you and how much you leaving tore her to pieces.

"But then, I started missing her too much again. So, I read them again. Every last page, from start to finish, all over again. After the fourth time, I finally understood. She loved you. Up until the very last day, without any bitterness or anger or regret, she just loved you. She loved you so much that she'd roll over in her grave if she knew that I held any anger or ill-will towards you; she wouldn't have wanted to be responsible for anyone thinking anything but the best of you."

Brittany didn't have a word to offer in response. It didn't seem her place to interrupt the mother's grief, anyways. All she knew was that she couldn't stop crying, and she still wasn't sure why. She'd moved on a year ago. She never wished for this, and it wasn't her fault. It'd been even longer since they last spoke. She shouldn't be so easily guilted…

"I want you to have them, because they belong with you. You don't have to read them if you don't want to. I just know that she'd rest better if she knew this part of her was with you."

Mrs. Lopez eyebrows bowed into a helpless and hopeful plea, though she did everything in her power to keep her voice from cracking. She picked up the bag and held it out to Brittany, as if begging her to help lay her daughter to rest. Brittany was in no position to protest. Even if she and Santana hadn't been a part of each other's lives for the past year, this seemed like too dire a request to turn down from a mother who'd just lost her only child.

The blond wordlessly took the bag, and Mrs. Lopez responded only in a single nod before turning to resume her seat at the front of the sanctuary beside the casket. Brittany looked on for a few moments, a woman bearing the heartbreak of burying her child, clinging to the last moments she'd ever be able to lay eyes on her physical presence on this earth.

Brittany quickly gathered her purse and the tote bag of journals. Even though Mrs. Lopez hadn't asked her to go, there was something far too private and intimate about what was happening for her to stay.

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Hope you enjoyed the prologue! I'm not sure how much work I'll be able to put into it, because I'm determined to work on "School Girls." Comments are, however, appreciated :)


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